A gift for grandparents: a colouring book of the grandchildren

Grandparents tend to have plenty of mugs and not enough of the children. A book with the grandchildren on every page is something to look through again and again, and something to colour in with them when they visit.

It is also a gift the grandchildren can help with. A child can colour a page of their own face for Grandad, which makes the book a thing they made together. And no one else can buy it: it is made from your photos, so there is only one.

Look for the ones that look most like them. The best pages start with photos where you can see faces clearly:

• Close-ups, with faces filling a good part of the frame.
• Daylight, or a bright room.
• One or two people, not a crowd.
• The daft ones: the muddy boots, the gap-toothed grin, the baby mid-yawn.
• The dog, the garden, the beach you go back to. Pets and places work as well as people.

You can use up to 20, one for each page. Our guide to making a colouring book from your photos has more tips on choosing them.

Yes. Put the grandparent's address as the delivery address at checkout and we post it straight to them. If you would rather wrap it yourself, send it to your own address instead.

We deliver the photo book to the UK, the US (except Illinois), Canada (except Quebec), Australia and New Zealand. Each country sees the price in its own currency, and the book is printed near where it is going. Before you pay, we show the date it arrives by. The last order dates for Christmas are on our delivery page.

Yes. You can give the book your own title for the cover, and add a message on its own page at the front. A few lines in your own words is all it needs: who the pictures are of, and why you chose them.

In the US you might say Grandma and Grandpa, and in the UK Nan or Granny. Use whatever the grandchildren call them. It is their book, and it should sound like them.

If you are their parent or guardian, or have their parents' permission, you can use them. We never sell your photos or use them in adverts, and only the services that make your order see them. We delete them 7 days after your preview if you don't order, and 30 days after delivery if you do. If the grandchildren aren't yours, check with their parents first.

Usually the first thing is a hunt for faces. They find one, then another, then call someone over to look. Each page is a photo they know, drawn as a line picture, and every one is a small conversation about the day it was taken.

After that, the book does two jobs. It sits on the table for a quiet hour with a pen, and it comes out when the grandchildren visit, so they can colour themselves in. It can be a book they finish alone or one they share, a page at a time, over several visits.

Sooner is easier. We draw every page and email it to you to check, and you can swap a photo or ask for a redraw before anything is printed. That takes a little time, so leave room for it.

More ideas? See our gifts for Mum or Gran and gifts for Dad or Grandad, or our colouring book gift guide for Mum or Nan.